Abstract
Aversive learning has been studied in a variety of species, such as honey bees, mice, and non-human primates. Since aversive learning has been found in some invertebrates and mammals, it will be interesting to know if this ability is shared with crickets. This paper provides data on aversive learning in male and female house crickets (Acheta domesticus) using a shuttle box apparatus. Crickets are an ideal subject for these experiments due to their well-documented learning abilities in other contexts and their readily quantifiable behaviors. The shuttle box involves a two-compartment shock grid in which a ‘master’ cricket can learn to avoid the shock by moving to specific designated locations, while a paired yoked cricket is shocked regardless of its location and therefore cannot learn. Baseline control crickets were placed in the same device as the experimental crickets but did not receive a shock. Male and female master crickets demonstrated some aversive learning, as indicated by spending more time than expected by chance in the correct (no shock) location during some parts of the experiment, although there was high variability in performance. These results suggest that there is limited evidence that the house crickets in this experiment learned how to avoid the shock. Further research with additional stimuli and other cricket species should be conducted to determine if house crickets and other species of crickets exhibit aversive learning.
Highlights
Aversive learning is crucial to an individual’s survival
Neither the male nor female baseline crickets exhibited significant differences from chance in the amount of time spent on the correct side (Table 1; Figs 2, 3). These results indicate that the baseline crickets are representative of normal behavior when in the apparatus without aversive conditions (Black et al 2021)
One goal was to investigate whether house crickets, A. domesticus, exhibit aversive learning
Summary
Aversive learning is crucial to an individual’s survival. One example of aversive learning is taste aversion, which is an important defense against potential poisoning (Logue 1985, Bernstein 1999). Insects demonstrate aversive learning (Abramson et al 1977, Dethier 1980, Abramson 1986). Dethier (1980) first studied food aversion in polyphagous insects using two wooly bear caterpillars. Researchers have studied insect taste aversion related to foraging choices (Dethier 1980, Bernays 1993). These caterpillars exhibited aversive learning to petunias after recovering from acute illness linked to the consumption of the plant (Dethier 1980). Honey bees exhibit aversive learning, as demonstrated in escape, punishment, and avoidance paradigms (Abramson 1986), and harvester ants can learn to go to a specific area to terminate and passively avoid vibration (Abramson et al 1977)
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